97X Backyard BBQ

Aswan North of Paper Tongues performs at 97X Backyard BBQ at Vinoy Park in St. Petersburg, Florida

I had a ton of fun shooting this event. I was drawn in by the fact that NEEDTOBREATHE was playing (currently one of my favorite bands), but was then blown away at how great the other bands were as well. I hadn’t really heard of the other acts before going, but I came away with a couple of new favorite bands.

American Bang, NEEDTOBREATHE, Paper Tongues, Crash Kings, and Flobots after the jump!

This thing started later in the morning (around 10 or so) and I left after shooting the last band around 7:30, so it was a long day with lots of bands. One of the first ones up was Nashville-based American Bang.

Dang these guys were good. They looked and sounded like what rock and roll is supposed to look and sound like.

Jaren Johnston of American Bang

Ben Brown of American Bang

Neil Mason of American Bang

Kelby Ray of American Bang

Ran into Kelby and Neil out in the crowd later and got a quick shot of them…

Super nice guys!

There were also some interesting characters in the crowd, like this guy…

Then there was NEEDTOBREATHE. This was my second time shooting them this year.

Bear Rinehart of NEEDTOBREATHE

Bo Rinehart of NEEDTOBREATHE

Seth Bolt of NEEDTOBREATHE

Joe Stillwell of NEEDTOBREATHE

Up next was by far my favorite performance of the day, Paper Tongues. These guys had so much energy and were great performers! Made for a really fun shoot.

Aswan North of Paper Tongues

Daniel Santell of Paper Tongues

So, the thing I loved about the stage setup, and took full advantage, was that there were two stages. There was the main stage, then a little connector to a secondary stage. Between the two stages was plenty of room for photographers, which made for a great way to get shots like this (and the first shot of this post)…

You can see a shot of the stage setup from the crowd here (that’s me shooting between the two stages).

And of course Aswan had to come down and say hi to the fans…

Next up, Crash Kings. Musically, they were my favorite band of the day (aside from NEEDTOBREATHE). The only downside is that it’s a challenge to shoot the lead singer when he’s behind a piano the whole time.

Tony Beliveau of Crash Kings